Stephan: White supremacists are actively recruiting an army of people your tax dollars paid to train. It is happening right out in the open and even though there is a growing recognition that White terrorism is a growing threat to America's wellbeing nothing is being done about the recruitment programs white racists are running -- successfully.
Members of far-right groups marching in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, Credit:Wikimedia Commons
It isn’t hard to understand why violent white supremacist and white nationalist groups and far-right militia groups try to recruit people who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces; they like having new members who are well-trained in the use of weapons. And according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the left-wing media collective Unicorn Riot, roughly one in five new Patriot Front recruits has a military background.
Patriot Front is a White supremacist group that was founded in August 2017 following the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and is an offshoot of the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, founded in 2015.
In an article published by The Guardian on February 9, journalist Maya Yang reports that according to “leaked documents published and reviewed” by the SPLC and Unicorn Riot, “some 18 out of the 87 applicants, or 21%, said they were currently or previously affiliated […]
Stephan: Here is some good, if mixed, news about the USPS, and I believe this is happening on a rare bipartisan basis, because Americans, individuals and businesses, in both Red and Blue states are unhappy with their experience of the post office and have voiced their feelings.
Workers load mail into delivery vehicles outside a U.S. Postal Service distribution center in Chicago Credit: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News
The House on Tuesday advanced a major financial overhaul of the ailing U.S. Postal Service, relieving it of tens of billions of dollars in liabilities that agency leaders said prevented it from modernizing and providing efficient service.
The bill, which passed 342 to 92, marks a major breakthrough for the mail agency and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who made the legislation the centerpiece of his 10-year postal restructuring plan.
The Postal Service has implored Congress to help fix its balance sheet for nearly 15 years, and agency leaders are cautiously optimistic about prospects for the Postal Service Reform Act in the Senate. It has 27 co-sponsors in the upper chamber, including 14 Republicans, sufficient support to defeat a potential filibuster.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the chamber would vote on the legislation by the end of next week, citing its bipartisan popularity.
Stephan: The problem with nuclear power, is nuclear waste. How do you store something for thousands of years, and make sure it doesn't cause any harm over all that time? The answer to that question is that no one knows how to do that, it has never been done. And the cost when factored in makes nuclear so much more costly than eco-alternatives that using nuclear is silly.
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency visit the Onkalo deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel in Finland in November 2020. When completed, Onkalo will be the first facility of its kind for high-level nuclear waste in the world. Credit: TVO / Tapani Karjanlahti
The final resting place of Canada’s most radioactive nuclear waste could be a cave about as deep below the surface as the CN Tower is tall.
If it happens, the chamber and its network of tunnels will be drilled into bedrock in the Great Lakes basin. Pellets of spent nuclear fuel — baked into a ceramic form, loaded into bundles of metal tubes the size of fireplace logs, then placed into a metal container encased in clay made from volcanic ash — will be stacked in the underground chamber sealed with concrete 10 to 12 metres thick. Though the radioactive pellets will have spent several years cooling down in pools and concrete canisters, they will still emit so much energy that their presence will heat up the space where they sit for 30 […]
Stephan: I agree with every point Jennifer Rubin makes in this essay. She frames the diffference between Red and Blue states correctly. The Great Schism Trend is reaching an intensity such that is getting harder and harder to see how we go on as a unified democracy. As time goes on, if the Republicans continue to prevail in the Red states the increasingly differences between the states will compel some kind of divorce with a structured settlement.
At Highlands Ranch High School in Colorado, students walk out in protest of a vote by a conservative-majority school board to fire the district’s superintendent on Feb. 7. Credit: Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Some Republican lawmakers in Georgia have proposed legislation that would prevent schools from requiring any childhood vaccination requirements. Apparently fanning the coronavirus pandemic is not enough; they appear willing to spur a comeback of childhood diseases once nearly obliterated in advanced societies, such as polio or measles.
Meanwhile, the MAGA crowd in Florida has proposed legislation that seeks to prevent teaching topics that might make White students uncomfortable. Robert P. Jones, head of the Public Religion Research Institute, explains:The most pernicious part of the bill is its bizarre definition of “individual freedom,” consisting of eight principles plainly written to protect white people. The final one is the most sweeping: “An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.” […]
Stephan: The price gouging of Americans by the big pharmaceutical corporations is a leading example of what is wrong with the this country's illness profit system. Americans pay absurdly over-inflated prices for their medications because Big Pharma rents senators and representatives as needed to see that their control of prices is not threatened.
Mark Cuban is a billionaire but he is appalled by this system, and is trying to do something about it. I do not think we should be dependent on compassionate billionaires, the system should be completely restructured. But until that happens, and that depends on for whom you vote, this may help you.
Millions of Americans struggle to afford prescription medications each month due to rising prices.Billionaire investor Mark Cuban recently launched a new pharmacy to provide access to affordable drugs.While the pharmacy doesn’t accept insurance and customers must pay out of pocket, experts say it will likely make some much-needed drugs a lot more accessible.
Exorbitant drug prices are keeping life-saving medications out of reach for millions of Americans. Now, billionaire investor Mark Cuban is trying to change that with a new transparent pharmacy.
Cuban launched the online pharmacy, called The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company (MCCPDC), on January 19, 2022. As a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler that purchases drugs directly from manufacturers, MCCPDC aims to “shield consumers from inflated drug prices” by bypassing middlemen.
The need for affordable drugs in the U.S. is undeniable. A September 2021 Gallup poll found that 18 million Americans were recently unable to pay for at least one prescription medication for their household due to rising costs. One in 10 Americans has skipped […]
